‘When I heard Colin’s finished song I found myself crying. I’m very grateful to him’
Jacqueline Wilson
‘What an enchantment to hear my little lyric realised, augmented, sent to the firmament’ Sebastian Barry
‘To have Colin add music that sticks in the mind has been a privilege I never expected.’
Val McDermid
‘As a longstanding fan it’s a great privilege to be alongside such wonderful collaborators.’ Stephen Kelman

‘The Songs are all gold!’ – Sir Ian Rankin

‘I LOVE my song. And it’s really fantastic album. I’m so proud to be a part of this.’
Nick Hornby

Jacqueline Wilson: Somebody Else’s Life

‘I left home when I was seventeen.  I’d been offered a job as a junior journalist with the Scottish publishing firm D.C.Thomsons.  It seemed too good a chance to miss, though I didn’t know anyone in Scotland and it was a big step for me. I started off at the Church of Scotland Girls’ Hostel in Dundee. The Matron didn’t have any empty beds in the dormitories so she put me in the Linen Cupboard with a camp bed as a temporary measure.  It was the only warm room in the hostel, so girls wanted to be my friend so they could squeeze up next to the hot pipes. It was still very lonely at times, but this cramped cupboard was my first proper room where I could write – and it meant the world to me.  I felt a proper writer at last.I wrote the verses quickly, without too much emotion – but when I heard Colin’s finished song I found myself crying.  I’m very grateful to him.’

Sebastian Barry: Kelshabeg

‘What an enchantment to hear my little lyric realised, augmented, sent to the firmament… Mull Historical Society has the creative chops to make something permanent and radiant of my words. The lyric has its origin in a small country kitchen, of no account you might say, where two older women looked after two small children for a long summer, dipping into winter, in 1959. Lit by Irish sunlight through small windows, and in the growing dark by the spluttering Tilly lamp, a person almost in itself, the women, my great aunt Annie and her cousin Sarah, offered sanctuary and mothering to myself and my sister. Recently I returned to the cottage for the first time in 60 years for a documentary for RTE. As I approached the door, where cousins of mine still live, I prayed for a moment that everything was still there, as it had been, in a little continuum of care, in an equilibrium of peace.’

Val McDermid: Room of Masks

‘I don’t remember a time in my life without music – singing in the car, in the church; later, in my room, singing along to my guitar, teaching myself the songs I loved most. I always admired the skill of singer/songwriters who could match lyrics with music. I tried, but it never really worked. So it was a real thrill when Colin invited me to join this project. I can always set some words down on the page; to have Colin pick out the ones that worked for song then add music that sticks in the mind has been a privilege I never expected. I’m so proud to be a part of this project!’

Jennifer Clement: Not Enough Sorry

‘When Colin MacIntyre invited to me to be a part of In My Mind There’s A Room, he said he would be creating an original celebration of music and literature. I was honored to be a part of a group of exceptional writers he’d brought together for this project.  He had no way of knowing that Scotland is a part of me.  Growing up in Mexico City, most Thursday evenings for years beginning at about the age of eleven, I was taken to group classes where I learned Highland dancing. My song lyric began with the title “Not Enough Sorry” as the main idea and refrain.   I gave Colin a choice between the song and my poem “Beauty” and he ended up using a mix of the two. With the album now completed, I’ve loved hearing the lyrics and range of melodies, which have created a voyage of wit, darkness, joy and surprise.’

Stephen Kelman: The Red Flame Diner

“The Red Flame diner is more than just a room to my wife and I; it’s the first place in New York City where we felt at home. We’ve been going there for over a decade now, not just to eat breakfast, but to find constancy in an ever-changing world and to renew our promise to each other to express our best selves. Writing the lyrics for ‘The Red Flame Diner’, I hoped to honour a room that holds a special place in our hearts, while also recalling the role New York has played in our story. A humble coffee house can be the setting for seismic moments. I’m in awe of Mull Historical Society’s ability to distil such moments into music that beguiles, consoles, and celebrates. As a longstanding fan it’s a great privilege to be a part of this latest project, alongside such wonderful collaborators.”

Ian Rankin: My Bedroom Was My Rocket

‘The Songs are all gold!’

Nick Hornby: Panicked Feathers 

‘I LOVE my song. It’s fantastic. And it’s really a lovely album. I’m so proud to be a part of this album.’

James Robertson: Seeds

“The room in this song was in the attic space of the big Victorian house my family lived in from 1966 to 1978. It was accessed by a very steep, narrow staircase. I retreated up there because I wanted a space apart where I could play music as loud as I wanted whilst hammering out stories, mostly Westerns, on my portable typewriter. I covered the wood-panelled walls with cut-out images of my heroes, Native American leaders. It was a room with a lot of views. Years later I re-imagined it, in a short story, inhabited by a mysterious, scary old woman, maybe a ghost. When Colin asked me to be part of this project, I saw it again, the place where I became a writer long before I made a living from being one. But this time we’re both there, the storytelling wife and my young self, and I’m not sure which one of us is a ghost.”

Jason Mott: All Empty Rooms Must Be Mourned 

‘I’m really looking forward to sharing the Mull Historical Society album! I’m just thrilled for my words, my room, to be a part of it’.

Alan Warner: Wake Up Sally

‘I have been grooving to “The Room”. The songs are real crackers. Amazing Colin can take all that material and just rustle up 14  pieces that sound matured out. Honoured to be a part of this.’

Liz Lochhead: 1952 / Anaglypta

‘1952′ is MacIntyre’s collaboration with arguably Scotland’s greatest living and most celebrated poet, Liz Lochhead. Lochhead has been the distinctive female voice of Scotland for many years, was the second Makar — Scotland’s Poet Laureate — and has been publishing her work for six decades. She is a recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. In ‘1952’ Lochhead writes for the first time about her very first room of her own that she moved into that year of the Coronation (resonating with the events of today) when she was four — living there until she was 18, when she left home for Glasgow School of Art in the Swinging 60’s. The song reflects her childhood reflections of this first room of her own, her fascination with books and seeing the world ‘upside down’, and name-checks authors such as Virginia Woolf. Says Liz — ‘This room was in the first home of their own my parents got after eight years of marriage and staying in their parents’ homes in overcrowded council houses in Lanarkshire. I slept in a cot with bars at the end of their bed till then. When I was four… I suddenly had this room of my own, a double bed and a whole new world emerged. It’s quite a visual thing, quite a rhyming thing.’ Lochhead also appears on the album with ‘Anaglypta’, on which she recites these memories in greater detail in her own distinctive voice, to the accompaniment of MacIntyre on piano.